The yew garden is Packwood’s rarest and most famous feature – a representation of the Sermon on the Mount. At one end of the garden there is a raised path which is reached by a short flight of steps:
This transverse walk is flanked by twelve great yews now known as ‘The Apostles’ with four very big specimens in the middle known as ‘The Evangelists’. Crowning ‘The Mount’, reached by a spiral path hedged with box and on the axis of the garden, is a single yew tree, ‘The Master’, also sometimes called ‘The Pinnacle of the Temple’.*
In the first photo you can just about see the steps leading to ‘The Apostles’ which can be seen to the left of the photo with ‘The Master’ being just out of view. The trees to the right and in the second two photos are ‘The Multitude’, these yews replaced an orchard in the 19th century.
*From the National Trust guidebook.
14 Comments CherryPie on May 18th 2011
Packwood House is very close to Baddesley Clinton which I recently blogged about. You can see from the exterior that it is completely different in mood and style. A description from the guidebook:
at Packwood the compact house, relatively undistinguished externally, is a1920s and ’30s recasting of a much altered late 16th-century timber-framed building. It is set off by subsidiary buildings and garden walls in richly coloured brickwork of the 17th century, some of it moulded and architecturally enriched. Furthermore, its setting is public and accessible, the handsome outbuildings putting on a smart face either side of the road in the way fashionable until the early 18th century. Discovering it suddenly, after a bend in one of the many narrow, erratic lanes characteristic of this unspoilt part of Warwickshire, is an experience never forgotten: one is intrigued and impressed as a traveller three centuries ago would have been. Most fascinating of all are the tantalising glimpses of the yew garden which presents its flank to the public road.
I shall talk about the yew garden some more in another post.
4 Comments CherryPie on May 17th 2011
Synopsis (from book cover):
Welcome to Eden population: Zero
Off the coast of Madagascar and on the run, underwater archaeologist Daniel Knox is searching for the wreck of a Chinese treasure ship. But when and old friend and her father vanish from the idyllic Eden nature reserve, he breaks cover to go and investigate.
It is the opportunity for Georgian gangster Ilya Nergadze has been waiting for. His two hit men close in fast on Knox, eager to settle and old score. Also bound for Eden is TV zoologist Rebecca Kirkpatrick, determined to find her missing family and solve a mystery from her past.
As Knox and Rebecca chase their answers it becomes increasingly clear that Eden’s beautiful reefs and forests conceal more than a multitude of dangers and ugly truths – they also hide a lethal secret that could just rewrite the history of the New World.
Review:
This is the first book that I have read by Will Adams and although I found it a little slow to start off with it soon became a page turner. The story continues on from where the storyline of the previous novel finished. I didn’t find it a problem that I hadn’t read the previous novel because this story stands on it’s own. The plot has it’s share of twists and turns as the two main characters are drawn together from their separate lives. Along the way it also covers some aspects of maritime history which is interesting in itself.
I found it an easy read with just enough plot twists to keep it interesting until the last page. If you like this type of thriller it would be an ideal holiday read.
2 Comments CherryPie on May 17th 2011
8 Comments CherryPie on May 16th 2011
Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.
Robert A. Heinlein
12 Comments CherryPie on May 15th 2011
